


The Young Boy Downstairs: An Original Undertale Story

by CandyQueen01



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Good W. D. Gaster, Help, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Major Original Character(s), Nischief being a bit of a bitch, Self-Hatred, Sindy is a precious cinnamonroll, Torture, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-17 20:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10601559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyQueen01/pseuds/CandyQueen01
Summary: In the multiverse, there is a hierarchy of beings with power that in itself contains a number of rules. This pyramid of power ranges from the creators of worlds to the lesser monsters and humans that inhabit these worlds and give them depth. In between these are the Universe Jumpers, usually of skeletal descent with the ability to open portals to alternate universes, driven by a thirst for knowledge.Somewhere in the multiverse, in a little, unnoticed universe, there was a dark, murky cellar. Inside was a young boy, a half-monster, who was beaten, injured, broken. He was different; even monsters in the Underground were in some ways afraid of him. As he goes about in his world, just trying desperately to survive, he makes a mistake and pays a price, costing his life or the life of others. Sindy has to stay determined...or die.





	1. The Bench Atop Mount Ebott

**Author's Note:**

> Frankly, I wasn't sure if I should publish this at first. I mean, there's the fact that this is mainly focused on an original character and another original character (in fact there's barely any Sans or Papyrus *gasp*), and then there's the fact that I never thought of myself as a "great writer." 
> 
> The first chapter is always the shortest when I begin. I have a harder time beginning a story then continuing it, and the beginning is what motivates me to write, so you can see the bind I'm in. But frankly, I think a short beginning works here. I need to set the scene quickly so I can get to the REAL beginning. This is more of a prologue...

It wasn’t a special bench, really. In fact, it was rather rushed. The wood was not evenly cut, causing some bumps here and there. It didn’t have the smooth finish of the benches further down the mountain; it was rough and had a sandpaper texture when you run your hand along its edges. Sometimes it would give you splinters, even. But it held a large amount of history, that bench; he remembers when they carved their names into it a year ago on the back. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The bench on top of the mountain was usually his favorite place to go when he was thinking. It was quiet--not many hikers wanted to climb near the entrance to the Underground--and had a perfect view of the sun setting over the nearby lake that sat adjacent to the city of Ebott. The rays of the sun shimmered across the calm surface of the water, which, if he was lucky, would reflect onto the mountains in such a way that made the useless rock shine like crystal. 

Sometimes he’d find himself missing the luminescent crystals of the Underground. While he wasn’t fond of the memories the caves associated with, the crystals always amazed him. They couldn’t compete with the stars in the sky, but they too held wonders in themselves. For him, they held the wishes of hundreds of monsters; he could read all their hopes and dreams in the shine of a single crystal. It was liberating for him. 

He casually stretched his arms out in front of him, as if he were reaching for the sunset, before he placed them back in the deep pockets of his shorts. A breeze flew by gently, causing his several ear piercings to shiver. He frowned, his pointed ears twitching uncomfortably.

The shadows the sun cast along the gravel path stretched behind him, growing and growing. At this he smirked. In a way, the sunset reflected himself. The sky turned a deep midnight blue where the Sun’s light couldn’t reach and the clouds begin to disappear. Sometimes he’d feel as if the clouds were his memories as they vanished and he changed. It wouldn’t be the first time he was consumed by darkness. 

Sinnerian was never one to really talk to other people. If he did say something, it was usually sarcastic and rather snarky. But when something was really bothering him, it wasn’t hard to tell. He would often spend an hour sitting on the bench staring off into the sunset every week or so. Even though he didn’t like it, he had to be alone sometimes. 

He inhaled and exhaled slowly, not taking his eyes off the scene. This is where all he did was think. He’s not sure what he thought about, but he thought. It would drown out everything else as if he were deep underwater and his mind would wonder away from him. When he tried to pull it back, it merely resisted and continued its adventure into...

“You’ll never make any friends if you keep going off alone like that” she teased him.

Valerie was the one who could read him the easiest. Her sincere smile and her cute giggle would melt away any darkness in his SOUL. And that is not an exaggeration. She was always fussing about him like a mother, worrying about him and making him feel better. But she also cared about him like more than a friend. He knew this, she knew this. 

“Come on, Sin, let’s go back to the house” she said, floating closer to him and hovering just above the cliff’s edge, blocking his view of the sunset. He looked to his left in an annoyed manner. He’s not sure why he would get so easily annoyed. Luckily, she didn’t get upset about it. 

“Everyone else if waiting for us” she continued. “They were going to come, but...they didn’t want to interrupt you.” She didn’t wait for his response. “You’ve been acting off for a couple days. More than usual even.”

He propped his head up with his hand, resting his elbow in his knee. “Val, just leave me alone, okay? I’m fine.” He is a bad liar, honestly. 

She sat down next to him on the bench, looking off into the sunset with him. He glanced at her before returning his gaze to the sunset. About half of the Sun disappeared behind the glistening water of the lake before Valerie continued.

“Sin, you’ve been up here sitting on this bench all day. I’m...worried about you” she sighed, fidgeting with her transparent hands. He kept looking at the Sun, not responding to her.

“Sin…?”

No response. Valerie scooted a bit closer to him. _This thing again_. She knows he hates it when she does this. She would continue her movement toward him until she got some sort of reaction or answer. He attempted a new strategy: not doing anything.

“Sin…” she said in a playful, singsong voice. He sat still, not taking his eyes off the Sun. Looking at her is admitting defeat. While he acted like he was bored out of his mind, maybe even annoyed at her presence, he was getting anxious each time she got closer. 

She stopped scooting closer, but she was still close enough to gently rest her head on his shoulder. He flinched slightly, blushing; she noticed this immediately.

“Oh, so you can hear me?” she teased, giggling.

“Sh-shut up!” his voice cracked. He had barely talked all day. She laughed harder. 

“That’s what happens when you don’t talk to people all day” she said, still giggling. 

He groaned in irritation and looked back at the sunset. She stopped giggling, noticing his attitude.

“Sinnerian?”

“What?” he responded, maybe a bit more curtly than he had originally intended.

“What’s wrong? Did we do something wrong?”

He immediately felt guilty for ignoring them all day. “N-no! I-I just...It’s not you guys, it’s this whole damn day. I can’t really...I don’t want to talk about this” he finally finished. His mind raced for something else to say or do, but came up with nothing. He looked back at the sunset.

“Is it...today? Is there something about today you’re not telling us about? Telling me about?”

She nailed it. He rubbed his left arm, a nervous habit, and sighed. He looked back at her. Her eyes were like his: unnatural. He inhaled and exhaled.

“It’s...it’s just...it’s my birthday today.”

He never regarded his existence with much happiness. Sure, he was glad to be alive, but for him his birthday was like a bad omen. 

Valerie sat up quickly in surprise. “Y-your birthday is today?! W-why didn’t you tell me?” she beamed at him. “You’ve never told me your birthday before. I’ve always wanted to ask you about it!” She suddenly gave him a quizzical look. “How old are you today, then?”

“Eighteen” he breathed in a bored manner. He’s been alive for eighteen years, a new record for his kind. _Half breed_ , her voice echoed in his head. Not Valerie’s, but...

“W-we should celebrate” Valerie continued excitedly, distracting him from delving deeper into his own past. “I could go tell the team right now and we could--”

“I don’t want to celebrate, Val. I just want to be alone.”

She floated back down onto the bench. He hadn’t even noticed that she had flown upward in excitement, but it didn’t surprise him; it was habit for ghosts. She sat back down, looking at him, worried. “B-but Sin, I…” she started, a hurt look on her face. “I just want to…make you feel better.”

“Don’t. I just…” he started, glaring at her in an irritated manner. He stopped, however, looking her in the eyes. Her expression was earnest and distraught, even… _Fearful_. “I just…” he stuttered. His glare changed in that moment, reflecting hers. His eyes looked for something else to stare at, but they kept returning to look back into hers. After what seemed like decades, he looked back at the sun setting over the lake.

“It’s not that I don’t want to celebrate...It’s that…” he finally began to explain. “It’s that there’s nothing to celebrate for.” She remained silent. “Val, you’re the only one who knows what basically happened before we met. You should know there are somethings I don’t want to talk about” he continued. 

She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. She rubbed her thumb and her index finger together. A breeze passed by them as they sat in silence. Her hair flowed in the wind, shining in the dying light of the sunset. In that moment, she really was beautiful to him. She’s really the only one who could get under his skin like this. He sighed, giving in to his impulses.

“It all started with a rat” I began.


	2. The Creaking Door to the Basement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the real story begins...

The rat squeaked anxiously. It scurried through the shadows of the basement, its red eyes glowing in the dark corners of the musty room. It elevated its head, sniffing at the air. It looked around the room further until its eyes fell on him. It was always watching as his guard...no, more like his warden. It wouldn’t attack him, even though it was so hungry. It wouldn’t approach him even though it wanted to. It wouldn’t help him because it was her slave; just like him. 

He always thought rats were his friends; at least that’s what he thought eight months ago. He would find them in his house every now and again, sneaking into his bedroom at night believing the shack was abandoned. He knew they were there somewhere, lurking in the walls or under the torn floorboards of his room, but he never really cared. Now he hated rats. 

The rat scurried into a small hole in the wall. He looked after it, but past the hole was pitch darkness. He scooted back to his own corner in the room, curling up into a ball, waiting. He glanced up to count the number of bricks on each wall. He had already calculated that each wall was equidistant from the others (the room was square-shaped) and that there were about 20 steps in the wooden staircase leading up into her house. Sindy would calculate these useless details when he was scared; it made him feel better.

_About 15 per row. 8 rows. 120 per wall. 4 walls. 480 total_ , he concluded to himself. He closed his eyes, satisfied with his answer, and let his head fall forwards onto his knees.

Sindy was only nine years old, but he had a very clear understanding of what was happening around him. He would sometimes get glimpses of the code that made up the world, and other times he would be able to read the code of the people in it. He often had an easy time reading people as it was…

He sighed. He wondered if his mother would have laughed at that.

Upon the thought of his mother laughing, Sindy began to think of how life would have been if she never left him. He tried to envision where he would be at that moment: his house came into mind, with his mother cooking breakfast when he came out of his room, drowsy and barely staying awake. She’d smile when he came out and he’d sit at their table with her and eat his mother’s cooking. He’d go to school like a regular kid, have friends and be happy. But instead…

He shook his head. _I can’t focus on this. He told me to stay determined._

The door to the musty basement opened, and his pointed ears perked up. He opened one eye at the sound. She hadn’t fixed the door. Its hinges were old and rusted from lack of use, so the door creaked noisily whenever it opened. The door is what scared him the most about the basement; it meant that she was coming down to join him. 

Usually when Sindy heard the noise of the door, his mind would conjure the worst possible scenario: _What would she do to me this time?_ He remembered when she first came down into the basement to join him. She grinned at him.

“Okay, Mutt. Stay still for me” she told him, her beady yellow eyes gleaming. 

He didn’t get it. He couldn’t move much as it was whenever she latched the collar around his neck and chained it to the wall. She asked him to turn around, which he did. He was confused on what game she was playing with him; he even got a bit excited. Maybe she was going to surprise him with a present from the outside. But then he felt something burn itself onto his back. It was a seething, red-hot pain that made him want to die. He remembered screaming out in agony, crying for it to stop. He could smell his flesh burning off, he could feel it every time she put more pressure on it, burning it into his right shoulder blade. 

When she finally removed it from his back, he gasped for air, tears streaming down his face. She seemed unphased by what she had just done. She doused the carefully shaped metal in a water bucket she had carried down with her. The burning sensation continued to flame angrily on his upper back. Upon turning to look at her, he made out the pattern on the metal. 

_Stray Dog._

After all, that’s all he was to her. A stray...someone different...a half-breed.

Sindy opened both of his eyes when he heard the second noise that warned him of her; her feet thumping loudly down the wooden stairs. Sometimes she would just open the door to scare him, but when he heard her walking down the stairs he knew it wasn’t a joke. He backed up against the wall fearfully. Her metal-studded boots clanged on every step down. The shackles around his ankles dragged against the concrete floor as he continued his meager retreat. She reached the bottom step, holding her lantern up to shine its golden light into his corner. He squinted, blinking a couple times. He felt much more comfortable in the dark, especially because he didn’t have to see himself. 

“Morning, Mutt” she cooed at him softly. 

He shivered.

“Did you sleep well?” she continued, walking closer to him.

He focused on the floor and began to recount the number of thick red stripes and rings etched onto his legs (they weren’t scars, more like tattoos). 

She knelt down next to him, setting the lantern on the floor. His breathing quickened. She forcefully pinched at the pointed tip of his ear, dragging his head closer to hers. He yelped, quietly whimpering to himself. “I asked if you slept well” she repeated.

He nodded weakly. She let go. Picking up the lantern, she casually walked over to the opposite side of the room, setting the lantern down on the aluminum table on that side; he wasn’t sure how he knew it was aluminum, he just knew. 

Next to the aluminum table was a rusty, steel sink. Whenever she turned the knob, the faucet gurgled a response before lazily dripping water from its maw. Above the sink was a moldy, wooden cabinet where she stored his food. It usually consisted of some sort of mushed substance she took from an unlabeled can. It wasn’t much, but it was food. 

Atop the table were the same ceramic bowl and plastic cup she’d used for him for the past three months. She’d wash them when he finished, and if he was lucky and obedient she gave him a napkin to clean himself with; she didn’t give him silverware, so he had to use his hands to eat. 

She fiddled with the ceramic bowl on the table as she opened the cabinet, taking out one of the dozens of tin cans. She easily cracked open the can and poured the contents into the bowl. With her other free hand she flicked the faucet on and filled the plastic cup with the murky water it produced. She carried the bowl and the cup over to him, and placed them in front of him. He eyed them cautiously.

“Come on Mutt. You watched me make it” she said impatiently. 

He stretched a hesitant hand toward the bowl and the cup, sliding them closer to him. They scraped against the concrete floor loudly. His ears twitched, agitated at the noise. He adjusted himself, sitting cross-legged in his corner, and began to scarf the sludge down. It was horrid as usual with a foul smell and an acidic aftertaste. There was an underlying hint of something metallic when he got to the bottom of the bowl where the unappetizing slush and liquid congregated. He coughed, setting the bowl down and picking up the cup of water. He chugged the water down and set the cup next to the bowl. She gave him a disgusted look before taking the bowl and the cup back to the aluminum table. 

Sindy observed her as she washed the containers in the sink and placed them carefully back on the table to dry. _Maybe that explains the metallic taste._

“Well, Mutt, here’s a bit of good news for you” she said casually, turning to him and leaning against the table. In response, he looked her in the eyes, waiting for the news. She frowned. “Stop looking at me like that, Mutt, before I let my rats eat out your eyes” she threatened, slightly unnerved, her whiskers twitching. 

He looked back down at the floor immediately. He was used to it by now; his stare...no, his eyes unnerved people. His scleras were pitch black like tar, not the usual white color, and both irises were a deep, blood red. There was something unnatural about his eyes that made people nervous, made people want to hurt him. 

She sighed. “Anyways. I have a bit of good news, Mutt” she repeated. She often repeated herself; she always wanted to make sure her point came across and every question got an answer. “I’m allowing you to go outside. But” she interjected before he could respond, “you are to stay with me at all times and do everything I say. Got it, Mutt?”

He nodded eagerly. He didn’t care anymore; he could finally go outside. 

“Good. Work had been hectic. The Royal Guard has to put down insurrections all over the Underground, and we could use an obedient little stray dog like you for...practice.”

He began to chew on his quickly-growing fingernails in an agitated manner. “W-what’s an insurrction?”

She gave an annoyed groan. “An ‘insurrection.’ It’s a riot or rebellion. Don’t ask me these stupid questions outside or you’ll never see the outside again, got that, Mutt?”

He nodded, closing his mouth quickly, so quickly he cut his lip on his first row of sharp teeth. She didn’t seem to care as he wiped the blood off his lip, smearing the warm, black substance across his forearm. She sighed at him, massaging her furry temple gingerly. 

He quickly wiped his forearm on the back of his gray tunic, wincing when his arm stroked against the “Stray Dog” branded onto his upper back. 

She stood up from her leaning position against the aluminum table and walked up the wooden stairs, her boots clanging again with every step. His eyes followed her up curiously. He weakly stood to look up the staircase when she didn’t close the door behind her. His ears listened for her; he heard her moving around nearby the creaking door. _What is she doing?_

Her footsteps moved closer to the door and he crawled back into his corner. She stomped back down the stairs, throwing a ball of fabric at him when she reached the bottom. He awkwardly caught the ball of fabric in his hands, looking at it skeptically. The fabric was a bright blue cloth with the Underground symbol on the front. He held it up off the floor and unraveled it to reveal a tunic of sorts with a red sash tied around the middle loosely. 

“Change into that, Mutt” she said coldly, walking back up the stairs. “I’ll come back down in five minutes, so be done by then.” She walks back up the stairs for the second time today, closing the door behind her.

Sindy eyed the tunic cautiously, standing weakly to his feet. He held the tunic against his own body, testing its length and fit. Naturally it was too large for him, as his lack of truly nutritious food left him in a hungered state almost constantly. He would often run his finger along the side of his chest to feel the numerous bumps of his ribs coming through his pale skin. He folded the tunic carefully and placed it neatly on the floor next to him before continuing to shrug off his own ripped, gray tunic. It was difficult for him in his beleaguered and damaged state; he lifted his sore arms out of their sleeves and pulled the tunic downward, stepping out of it. While lifting his shackled feet, he slipped, falling backward clumsily and hitting his head on the wall behind him. He groaned, reaching behind the set of horns that emerged from his skull behind his ears to rub his head. 

He stood up again, picking up the new colored tunic. He stepped into the new one, being careful not to fall backwards again, He slipped his small arms through the long, baggy sleeves of the tunic and tied the brilliant red sash tightly around his small waist. He smiled a little, looking down at his new tunic. _It even hides the stripes on my arms_ , he thought to himself. His hand went up to his head again, a bump forming where he hit the wall. He winced when his finger gingerly rubbed against the bump on his head. 

The door opened again, light shining into the room. He would often forget how dark it is in the cellar when the door is closed; he never had any difficulty seeing in the dark. “You better be done down there, Mutt” she called down to him. 

“Yes” he called back up weakly, his voice cracking. She walked back down, having changed herself into a similar blue tunic but shorter with a leather belt around the waist and long black leggings under the tunic. She hadn’t changed her metal-studded boots. Her whiskers twitched in annoyance at his observing of her. 

“I told you to stop looking at me like that, Mutt” she said warningly again. She walked over to him quickly, and he stepped back fearfully into his corner, thinking she was going to hurt him again. Instead she begins to unhook the chain that latched his collar to the wall. He blinked in confusion. She reattached the chain to a silver bracelet she was wearing around her left wrist. “I’m not just going to let you run away from me” she said coldly. He looked at the ground. 

_Of course she wouldn’t_ , I told him. _You’re her pet, after all, Sindy. Pets shouldn’t run from their owners._


	3. The Changing River Underground

The collar had been her idea since the beginning. Not only would it keep him safely restrained in the basement, but it would provide her a leash if she ever let him go outside. He always thought of the collar as more symbolic; he’s just another one of her pets, and every pet needs a collar. The collar was much like what a fierce bulldog would wear; it was like a leather belt with spikes jutting out the sides and a metal loop attached in the back to connect to the chain. The chain would then latch onto a metal loop on the wall or her bracelet. 

He doesn’t remember how or when she put it on him. He woke up chained to the wall of the cellar a couple months ago, two weeks before she branded him. He remembers trying desperately to pry it off, rip it into shreds, anything. _It’s suffocating me!_ he thought. _I want it off! I hate it!_ He’d cut his hand on one of the spikes, causing a large, bleeding scrape to form. That’s when he realized he had black blood. _W-What’s happening to me? What the hell am I?!_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The chain connecting his collar to her bracelet shook and jingled like a row of metal bells as they both walked up the wooden stairs. He was slow and clumsy, not used to walking for one of the first times in weeks. He often stumbled, tripping on the wooden stairs and banging his shin into the step above his own. 

“At this rate, we’ll be at headquarters when it closes” she growled at him. “Get a move on, Mutt, and stop tripping for Asgore’s sake!”

He sniffed and nodded, gingerly stepping onto each step ahead of him. They passed the creaking door, which he eyed suspiciously before she continued to drag him through her house above.

The creaking door, he soon realized, stood idly at the end of a narrow hallway to the left of a small staircase. The walls were painted a khaki color with these odd designs he didn’t understand. Each design depicted a different colored heart that glowed softly, intertwined in different colored vines that wrapped around their painted matter. 

_Those hearts are paintings of SOULs, the culminations of our being. Everyone has a SOUL, and with these SOULs comes hidden power, such as magic in the case of monsters, or DETERMINATION in the case of rare humans like you used to be._

_A SOUL?_ he thought to himself. _Mine doesn’t look like any of these._ He stopped to consider one of the hearts painted onto the wall; it was a bright red color wrapped in black and white vines. A sharp tug at the chain on his collar made him yelp in surprise, turning to her. She gave him an annoyed look before walking forwards, continuing to drag him along with her. 

The hallway ended, opening into a larger, rectangular room. The small staircase to the left seemed to lead up to a form of balcony that looked down onto the rectangular room. The walls of the room, like those in the hallway, were a khaki color decorated with SOULs. On the far left was a decently sized television displaying what appeared to be a game show with a robot acting as the host. 

“I don’t like him personally, but Mettaton is the only thing to watch down here” she said casually when she noticed him watching the screen.

In front of the TV was a large black couch, easily large enough for four people to sit with room in between each of them. _I’ve only ever seen her, though_ Sindy pondered upon seeing the sheer size and length of the couch. _She must have a lot of friends. I wouldn’t know why, though._

Throughout the room were elegant nooks and crannies where he spotted a number of larger rats. Their red eyes glowed just the same as they did when they watched him in the cellar, but they were more tame than before. He could still feel their hunger when they looked at him, even their contempt of him; they wanted him gone and out of their own territory, or worse, dead. He looked away from the rats, hanging his head. They were her spies, her watchdogs, her slaves, her pets; they were everything she wanted him to be. Possessions. But, he wasn’t just an object. _Right?_ he questioned.

“Come on, Mutt” she tugged on the chain again, causing him to stumble. “Let’s get going instead of your mindless thinking, okay?!”

He quickly nodded in understanding before following her down another hallway to the right of the television. It wasn’t a long hallway, really only a couple feet. The door at the end slid open to the side when her feet touched the doormat, revealing the outside to him for one of the first times in months. 

She lived in Waterfall, a peaceful area that was dark and murky for rats like her. Luminescent water dripped into shallow pools from the stalactites of the cave. The rocky walls were a deep midnight blue; crystals escaped from cracks in the walls, shining an eerie blue light through the caverns. More crystals shown down from the safety of the stalactites, shimmering their own blue light across the luminescent water and the monsters that dwelled there. Lily pads floated gently in the still, silent waters of the cavern, along with the long stalks of the corresponding broomsedge that hung their heads, looking down at their own reflection in the water.

For hours monsterkind would gaze up at the crystal ceiling of Waterfall, giving their hopes and dreams to the shining light of the almost magical stones above. Whenever he looked up, Sindy could hear the whispers of dreams and wishes, merging together into one larger dream that all the monsters in the Underground shared.

_I wish we could be free and see the stars…_

His ears twitched uncomfortably. He looked at her as she locked the sliding door into her house. Her expression didn’t change. _She can’t hear them_ , he concluded to himself. 

She noticed him looking at her again, considering her countenance. This time, she said nothing, instead pulling at the chain connected to her bracelet and his collar, causing him to stumble and fall hard onto the ground. “Well, Mutt, let’s go” she said nonchalantly, as if she had never pulled the chain and he fallen on his own. She walked past him, and he was forced to his feet by the slowly building pressures of the collar around his neck as she moved further away from him. He walked after her at a similar pace, but was careful to keep a calculated meter in between them. He growled under his breathe, but immediately regretted doing so. 

Since he was small, he wasn’t accustomed to large places. Waterfall was especially large for him with its looming ceiling and open space. As she pulled him along through the caverns, his eyes scanned the silent water’s surface, watching each drip from the ceiling create ripples, like folds in the luminescent blue that expanded and expanded, events on the surface of a universe, until they finally reach him and dissipate, disappearing back into the emptiness of the water. He hadn’t realized how mesmerized he was until he felt the pressure around his neck increase uncomfortably again as he lagged behind, enthralled by the water surface. He quickly hurried back into his previous pace.

While it was hard for him to tell the time underground, he assumed it was either early or late in the morning or evening, as they didn’t see many monsters on their journey. Occasionally he would spot a monster or two making wishes to the star-like crystals or listening to the various echo flowers that lined the paths of Waterfall. They glanced in his direction once and awhile when they thought he wasn’t looking, but he could feel their eyes digging into his back as painfully as when she branded him. 

Upon turning down a corridor, he is met with a large opening of the caverns that slopes downwards into a shallow cave pool. He looked left and right along the land that wasn’t submerged in the water, and realized that it was more of an underground stream. His keen eyes noticed another cave entrance under the water glowing faintly, but his curiosity was put to a sudden halt when she tugged on his chain once more. Instead of falling, however, he merely stumbled and was able to regain his composure once more. 

“Okay, Mutt, here’s how the next ten minutes or so will go. First, we’re going to be riding the ferry to headquarters, and I do NOT want any talking from you” she said firmly. “Although, it’s not like you talk much as it is. Second, you will sit right behind me on the boat; no fidgeting, moving, anything. All I want to see you doing it breathing, got it Mutt?”

He nodded his understanding, the two long strands of his hair (that keep growing quickly despite his cutting them with his nails) jutting upwards and getting tangled in the small pair of horns growing behind his pointed ears. He desperately and quickly untangled them while she watched, obviously not impressed. 

 

After about 10 minutes, a cloaked figure appeared in the distance, floating downstream on a rather small boat. The boat had the head of a friendly cocker spaniel; and only when the river person got closer did he realize the boat WAS a cocker spaniel, a large one that paddled in the water, wagging its tail happily and panting. 

“Tra la la...would you care to ride, travelers?” the cloaked figure spoke in a soothing voice. It sounded like his mother’s voice…

“Yes, the Royal Guard headquarters” she told the river person in a demanding way.

“I’m going to need to see a Royal Guard badge to ride you there” the river person responded calmly. 

He wasn’t used to that: someone ordering her to do something. He went wide-eyed at the river person. _Don’t you know who she is?! She’s going to destroy you!_

She clears her throat. “Of course” she responded. She fidgeted in her pocket and from it withdrew a small bottle cap pin. She held it up to the river person, who in response ushered them onto the dog-boat. _Ship Spaniel? Bog? Spip?_ He couldn’t think of a name for it.

The dog’s back was flat and smooth, different than what he had expected. It felt like perfectly carved wood as his bare feet stepped onto it. She sat cross-legged behind the river person when she came on board, and you followed her action, sitting down.

The river person looked back at you. “I’m going to have to charge you extra for this many passengers,” they spoke gently.

She grumbled. “Don’t mind...him. He’s...in training.”

_Well that was a blatant lie._ Sindy felt the river person look at him through the pitch blackness under their hooded cloak. His scrawny demeanor, greasy hair, and dirt smudges were enough to tell he wasn’t in training (although the new tunic did make it a bit more difficult to tell). Still, the river person turned back to the front of the boat, uttering a command to the dog, which started quickly paddling through the water. 

He looks at the cave walls as the dog made it’s way through the cavern stream; the luminescent blue of Waterfall slowly faded, turning a darker blue and even giving off a light pinkish hue as they transitioned into Hotland territory. Before, the water was what distracted him, and he hated himself for it: his curiosity.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Woah” he said to himself in astonishment. He dipped his hand in the pink-hued water experimentally, immediately pulling his hand back out. “It’s hot!” he exclaimed in surprise. He quickly stuck both hands into the water. He leaned over to look deeper into the water curiously. He proceeded to lose his balance and unceremoniously fall into the water. He squealed in surprise, and quickly climbed back out onto the dry land covered in the red grass. He crouched onto all fours, dripping wet. 

_You idiot, you’re fine_ I told him.

He plopped into a cross-legged sit on the grass and his ear twitched. “S-sorry, it surprised me” he defended himself, looking down.

I sighed. _N-no, don’t apologize! Ugh, for the love of...look, can’t we keep going?_

“I thought you said this was my break time” he frowned, looking up toward the ceiling. He fell backwards, laying face up in the grass. “And according to my counting, I have 159 seconds remaining.”

I groan in a frustrated manner. _You’re curiosity is going to be the death of you._

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

_You were right_ , Sindy thinks to himself. 

The water turned a deep red as the dog continued its trek down the underground river. She remained silent and doesn’t even look at you, ignoring your existence. Water splashes onto the dog’s back, retaining its red color even as droplets. 

“Beware the boy who talks with ghosts.”

He snapped up, his eyes looking at the river person. They didn’t move; they act as if they didn’t say anything. She turned at him, ready to strike him at a moment’s notice. He panted, sweating from the heat of Hotland and from the statement that was seemingly never said.

_Beware the boy who talks with ghosts_ I repeat mindlessly.

_I’ll have to remember that one._


End file.
